Case Studies
Ministry of Defence
At almost a quarter of a million hectares, the Ministry of Defence Estate represents roughly one per cent of the UK’s entire land mass.
Given the UK’s commitment to source 15 per cent of its energy from renewable sources by 2020, Rolton Group was invited by the MoD, in conjunction with the Carbon Trust, to carry out a strategic review of the renewable energy options available to the MoD.
The objective of this particular review of the Defence estate is to identify, evaluate and prioritise commercial opportunities for renewable energy generation, with the ultimate aim of reducing carbon emissions.
All the identified solutions had to be appropriate, ethical and robust in operation and deployment, and demonstrate a strong business case on commercial terms. The project was particularly complex given the widely varied nature of the different parts of the MoD’s estate.
The review took in all parts of the estate and gave recommendations as to the use of all relevant technologies including
- Solar photo voltaic
- Solar thermal
- Ground source heat pumps – closed loop
- Ground source heat pumps – open loop
- Air source heat pumps
- Micro, small- and medium-scale wind
- Small-scale hydro
- Dedicated biomass and CHP
- Tri-generation
- Anaerobic digestion
- Solid recovered fuels with CHP, and
- Pyrolysis, gasification and plasma
One of the key outputs was to identify the 50 sites with the greatest carbon emissions and therefore most likely to benefit from the application of renewable technologies and a consequent reduction in carbon footprint.
In order to carry out an accurate and consistent appraisal of the relevance of the available technologies, the Rolton team developed and applied a methodology that incorporated four phases:
- Analysis
- Assessment
- Test, and
- Solution, benefits and delivery strategy